Did you know that police are now able to use software to predict where some crimes may occur? Apparently crimes committed in areas form a pattern. This data can then be used to figure out such things as when a crime is likely to occur and where it might occur.
How it works: By taking data from how often crime occurs in an area and the times in which they occur along with the likely target of a particular type of crime police can send out a patrol to deter that crime before it starts. When police receive a call, they operate as normal, but other wise they are placed in a spot where crime is likely to occur based on the software which takes into account broken lights and unsecured property that may encourage crime. By using this data, they can in certain instances have police cars driven through an area by trainers as the symbol of a police car deters crime to begin with.
It currently works best against burglary and theft of vehicles and their contents, as the historical data is very extensive with respect to these types of crimes. Adding details such as road maps and road networks enhance the effectiveness of the software. According to the Criminologist Shane Johnson at the
Problems: This tool of law enforcement if not capable of stopping crimes root causes. It just helps with deterring crime. It positions police in a crime hot spot, but does not stop a criminal seeking out a less likely target in an area that was not predicted to be a crime hot spot.
Another issue is that if the data is misused or overused in a way other than intended, it may create a bias toward certain areas and the people that live in them. This may mean that police may become more active in rich neighborhoods rather than poor ones where the most crime typically occurs. Though, these same numbers have the potential to eliminate prejudice as well when it comes to deciding if some one should be paroled rather than deciding by stereotypes.
It starts a conversation: It makes people decide what they want from their justice system. For instance if you want to curb people from becoming repeat offenders authorities have to define how tough they are going to be on high risk and low risk parolees. But there is a fear of the justice system becoming too reliant on this technology and thus garner the same problem as the justice system has already with the CSI effect (thinking evidence has to be present to convict someone or exonerate someone irrespective of reason).
Fear: So far, the software developed has been used to target criminals and even to predict their future behavior. However, the Department of Homeland Security is using it to detect suspicious behavior, while some law enforcement is using it to see if parents using social services are likely to abuse their children. But it does not stop there as information like this can be used to predict our behavior from such things as social media. It has the potential to tell government what patterns we make as we go about our daily lives. Even if you use it to predict if a person is likely to commit a crime for the first time, how do you distinguish from the show boats, the load mouths and people just blowing off some steam. And guess what, social media has their own software doing the same thing to alert investigators to a potential threat, but unlike police they don't need a warrant.
Conclusion: There is some great potential in this technology. It has the power to reduce the most pervasive of crimes and may even be useful in arming citizens with information that they can use to batter secure their property. However, privacy concerns and misuse are still an issue. How much information are you willing to share for safety and security? Questions like these must be asked if this technology goes beyond just predicting crime hot spots.
For more see the article in "The Economist" magazine July 20th-26th 2013 issue, article name "Predictive Policing: Don't even think about it."
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